Product Description

This is a 3D pinted, 1:1250 scaled miniature model of a Spaceship concept of a not too distant future. It is based on science and it was created by me, Samuele Ciuffreda, an engineering student.

It is made in Strong & Flexible Plastic composed by three attachable parts: the larger part is the tank and engine. The second is a rotating arm with the main habitable module, which provides artificial gravity by centrifugal force. The smaller is an habitable zone of the Space Ship at 0 g composed by comunication structures, 4 docking gates (intended for docking with a landing spacecraft, for example) and an observatory dome.

The three parts have to be attached as showed in the picture, the miniature spaceship can be coloured by you as you want because it is delivered in white plastic,or in a elegant black look.

It was intented to be a commercial, interplanetary class spaceship for interplanetary travel through our Solar System, in a future where human have settled colonies on the Moon, Mars, and some of the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn.
These colonies are based on mining, industry and scientific research.
For example Mars is rich in iron and aluminium oxides and could become the metallurgic center of the Solar System; on the satellites of the outer Solar System is possible to extract Hydrogen from the underground oceans; Titan is a paradise of hydrocarbons; the asteroids are rich of precious metals that are essential in the informatic technology, and so on… the Solar System is a plenty of opportunities.

SS-0013a Betelgeuse ​is a relative small, simple and economic space ship and due to its limited maximum delta-v which it is capable of reaching, it is assigned to heavy cargo shipment for relative small distances (Earth-Mars; Earth-Moon; Mars-Asteroid belt; Callisto-Europa; Saturn-Titan ecc...)

Its name is SS-0013a Betelgeuse wich is composed by:

a letter that identifies the class of the ship. S stands for System and means that the ship is not made to go out of its orbital system (for example the Space Shuttle is a S class spaceship);SSstands for Star-System and means that the ship is an interplanetary class ship, so it's not made to go out of its star system (for example the Rosetta space probe);
interstellar class spaceship is identified by the acronym GSS which adds the G of Galaxy to the operational range of the spacecraft;
an hypothetical, because nearly impossible to make, UGSS class is intended to mark the spaceships that can travel out of the Milky Way through other galaxies. The U stands for Universe.

A number that identifies the single spaceship and it's given according to production order.

A single letter that identifies the version of that model of spaceship and could be lowercase if it is a commercial, cargo or robotic spacecraft and uppercase if not.

A proper name that can be freely choosen.

Technical informations:

Engines tecnology: gasdynamic thermonuclear fusion propulsion (theoretical, but not pure fantasy): a self sustaining thermonuclear fusion reactor produces Helium plasma at millions degrees in six comunicating chamber. The propellant (a mixture of water and liquid hydrogen) in the tank is put in the chambers and is heavly heated and so it expands in volume out through the De Laval nozzles.

(rough estimate of some possible journey durations. The trip times depend on multiple factors like the mutual position of the planets, the cruise speed reached or the amount of fuel consumed.)

​Trip to the Moon: ​4-5 hours.

Trip to Mars: 20-100 days.

Trip to Jupiter: 170-250 days.

Every trip consists in:

a costant accelerating stage, that takes something like few hours, depending on the acceleration rate, where there is a spending of propellant and the mudule is not rotating;

when the desired speed is reached the engines stop ejectingpropellant and the ship moves with constant speed, so the module start rotating to make the crew feel artificial gravity;

before the arrival to the destination the spaceship needs to decelerate until it reaches orbital speed: the ship makes a 180 degree turn and start ejecting propellant to decelerate while the module stop rotating.

The quantity of fuel, depending on the speed, needed to complete every stage is determined by the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation.